In the News (Sun 2 Aug 15)

KIRKLAND, JAMES I. James Ian Kirkland (1954-) is an American geologist and paleontologist who has studied dinosaurs from the soutwestern USA for over 20 years, discovering many new and important genera.

Earl Douglass (1862-1931) was a US fossil hunter who in 1909 found the Carnegie Quarry (now known as Dinosaur National Monument) in Utah, USA.

Dr. Langston was the thesis advisor of Douglas Lawson when Lawson found the giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus.

KIRKLAND, JAMES I. James Ian Kirkland (1954-) is an American geologist and paleontologist who has studied dinosaurs from the soutwestern USA for over 20 years, discovering many new and important genera.

Kirkland is an adjunct Professor of Geology at Mesa State College, Grand Junction, Colorado, a research Associate of the Denver Museum of Natural History, and a Utah State Paleontologist with the Utah Geologic Survey.

KIRKLAND, JAMES I. James Ian Kirkland (1954-) is an American geologist and paleontologist who has studied dinosaurs from the soutwestern USA for over 20 years, discovering many new and important genera.

James I. Kirkland, Ph.D., a world-traveling dinosaur expert involved in the discovery of the Utahraptor fossil, will be joining the Utah Geological Survey as State Paleontologist, effective June 1, 1999.

The author or co-author of 38 published professional journal articles, reports, papers, and book chapters relating to the life and environment of ancient times, Kirkland serves on the Tampa Museum of Science and Industry Advisory Board, the National Science Foundation Advisory Board, and the Dinosaurus Magazine Scientific Advisory Board.

In 1991, in a joint project with the College of Eastern Utah, he was involved in the discovery of the oldest and largest dromaeosaur yet, the Utahraptor ostrommaysorum.

The new species, Falcarius utahensis, could be the connection between a group of vicious meat-eating dinosaurs, related to Velociraptor, and another bizarre group of vegetarian dinosaurs known as therizinosaurs, said JamesKirkland, Utah's state paleontologist.

Kirkland said flowering plants, a possible food source, could have drawn Falcarius.

Falcarius may have dabbled in the world of meat as well as the leafy stuff, according to a study in Wednesday's edition of the journal Nature.

The scientists do not yet know whether Falcarius utahensis was a meateater or ate only plants or both, according to JamesKirkland, Utah state paleontologist at the Utah Geological Survey and principal scientist for the new study.

Feathered dinosaurs of the type known as Beipiaosaurus have been found in southeast China in recent years and Falcarius and Beipiaosaurus are about the same age and seem to represent an intermediate stage between lethal animals such as the velociraptors featured in the film Jurassic Park and later plant-eating therizinosaurs.

The new study shows that Falcarius was not a direct descendant from velociraptors but shared with them a common, so far undiscovered, ancestor, according to Scott Sampson of the Utah Museum of Natural History.

Scientists can't yet tell whether Falcarius (sickle-maker, for its four-inch sickle-like claws) ate meat, plants or both, according to JamesKirkland, state paleontologist for the Utah Geological Survey and principal scientist for the study.

The discovery of the new "missing link" species was announced Wednesday during a news conference at the University of Utah and in a paper published Thursday in the journal Nature.

He was working in Colorado at the time, and Denver fossil enthusiast John Scandizzo provided him with rough coordinates to the spot, located on federal land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, but he couldn't find it.

Dr. JamesKirkland, State Paleontologist for Utah and Jurassic Park Institute advisor, announced the discovery of a tooth that belonged to Dilophosaurus.

Aspects of the jurassic park movies and the lost world can be found here at the dinosaur activities center at the jurassic park institute.

Provides a great educational dinosaur resource for teachers, children, parents, museums, scientist, that is in conjunction with universal studios and steven spielberg and their movies jurassic park, and the lost world.

James I. Kirkland, Ph.D., a world-traveling dinosaur expert involved in the discovery of the Utahraptor fossil, will be joining the Utah Geological Survey as State Paleontologist, effective June 1, 1999.

In 1991, in a joint project with the College of Eastern Utah, he was involved in the discovery of the oldest and largest dromaeosaur yet, the Utahraptor ostrommaysorum.

He has excavated fossil-rich areas of the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Mongolia, reconstructing ancient marine and terrestrial environments.

` Probably a more familiar example of a dromaeosaur would be Velociraptor- which James T. Kirkland (a paleontologist you may have heard of) once assured me was not nearly as large and panic-inducing as the ones depicted in Stephen Spielberg's blockbuster movie, Jurassic Park.

` However, birds are most closely linked with the more famous sickle-clawed dinosaurs known as dromaeosaurs (DROME-ee-o-saurs), or 'swiftly-running reptiles', which had fairly large brains and an even more impressive hooked claw than troodontids.

The early fossil record of dromaeosaurs and Jurassic-aged birds is relatively sketchy, so it's hard to say exactly when this animal could have lived.